Oxford Trippin'
by Jill O'Brien
Summary: Sarah takes a day trip to Oxford while she's in London on vacation to visit Tolkien's grave and stops for dinner in the pub he used to go to.


Dedicated to PJ, who gave us a skulking Strider, and Viggo, who skulks with flair and the Professor, who dreamed it all up in the first place.

Warning: The plotbunnies made me do it, and since we all know rabbits have less understanding about plot and things like language differences than a fangirl does, the story is, alas, devoid of those finer points, but I've tried to make it humerous to compensate for that. If that upsets you, written protests can be placed in the metal can next to my desk with the old tea bags and last week's People magazine. If you love the story, place your written plaudits on my desk so that I can frame them and hang them over my desk. Make sure you don't mention the plotbunnies, as I don't want them to get big egos (that makes their teeth longer and sharper)

I knelt to tie the laces on my right boot, wondering how it had managed to come untied in the few hundred feet between here and the corner of St. Giles and Beaumont. At least the pub wasn't far away. I could get a table in there and not have to worry about my boot laces for at least half an hour, probably more if I lingered over my Strongbow. Or, even better, Woodpecker, but not many pubs had that cider on tap.

Inside the pub, I ordered the soup of the day and a pint of both Strongbow and Schweppe's lemonade, then, trying not to spill the full glasses, I made my way to a table not far from the fireplace and sat down, my eyes roaming around the main area of the pub, trying to imagine if it looked like this when Tolkien and his friends met in here, talking about their writing and debating about Eru only knew what. This was so incredibly awesome, to be in the pub that the Inklings used to meet in. Too bad no one else from the PPC could be here to share this pilgrimage with me. We'd have a total blast and probably sing at least one round of _Hey, Ho, to the Bottle I Go_ with feeling while holding our glasses aloft.

I giggled at the mental image and sipped my Strongbow, mulling over if I wanted to roam Oxford more after I ate or head to the train station and go back to London. My feet were definitely protesting pounding pavement all day and I still had the walk back to the station. But I had to get to Christ Church, where some of the Harry Potter movies had been filmed. No way I could skip that over. I'd be lynched by all the Potter-ites I knew when I got back to the States if I had a chance to get photos and didn't. I gave a slight shrug. I'd eat and then decide. Maybe the rest here would be enough so I could do Christ Church without going lame.

"Bloody smeg, it's warm in here," I muttered, wiping the sweat off my face with the shoulder of my shirt. "What'd they do, close all the bleeding windows?" Not far from me, I heard a match being struck and the smell of pipe tobacco filled my nostrils a moment later.

I bit back the urge to tell off whoever was smoking in a non-smoking area. They were likely a regular and I was just a mere tourist, and an American at that. They wouldn't take me seriously. Maybe if I told the guy at the bar, he'd do something. I turned to get a look at the person so I could describe them to the bartender, and almost dropped the glass in my hand when I got a good look.

"What the hell?" I exclaimed, sitting back down quickly. Someone in a cloak, hood drawn over their face, was sitting on a stool by the table in the far corner, the offending pipe sticking out from under the hood. Along with the smell of tobacco was the reek of body odor and manure. A quick look at his feet told me where the latter was coming from was coming from. I knew the English dressed to please only themselves, but most of them showered before dressing like colorblind fashion mistakes and left their barn boots outside. It seemed hard to believe someone like this would be found in Oxford, but I'd seen stranger things in my life. I was definitely going to complain to the bartender. I stood up and—

"'Scuse me, miss," the cloak by the fire said in a deep, slightly raspy voice, the accent definitely not British. "You wouldn't, by chance, be named Starla or Amber or Arwena or Leganda, would you?"

I stopped and looked back at the man. "No. Why?" I'd have shot myself if I had a name that made me sound like a brainless, fashion- obsessed twit. And 'Leganda'? What kind of Legolusting fangirl kind of name was that?

Two hands appeared out of the cloak, growing arms quickly as the hands moved up to push the hood of the cloak back slightly, showing the man's face. His hair was lank and greasy, with bits of food trapped in his untrimmed beard. I tried not to let disgust show on my face. "I'm sorry for asking a strange question. You look a lot like some girls-women-girls that have been giving friends and me trouble."

"Oh. Okay. No, my name's Sarah."

He nodded slightly and stood. "If you'll excuse me..."

"Of course." Please, go! To a shower, preferably. But anywhere away from here was fine.

He only went to the bar and bought three pints of Guinness (only Guinness went in Guinness pint glasses) and a glass of white wine, which he brought back to his table. I wondered about the wine, but said nothing as I sat down to wait for my food. If the bartender wasn't telling him to put out the pipe, there wasn't anything I could do. Not that the tobacco smelled terrible. It was rather pleasant, actually.

"I'm Strider," he said, moving his stool a bit closer to where I sat.

"A Rings fan." So he wanted to be a Dunedain. That would explain why he looked like a Ted Kazinski wannabe. "So am I."

A guarded look came over his face. "What rings are you talking about?"

"Lord of the Rings. The novel Tolkien wrote." He was looking more and more wary and distrustful the longer I spoke, making me slide my chair back more and more in case I needed to bolt away from him. "The novel the movies Peter Jackson made are based on."

"What are movies?"

I felt my face go flat as I tried to wrap my mind around this guy not knowing what movies were. Crazy and out of touch, all in one package. My luck I'd be stuck dealing with him. "That would take a while to explain. You've never read anything by J.R.R Tolkien?"

He shook his head. "No. Is he from Gondor?"

"If you've never read anything by Tolkien, how do you know about Gondor?"

"It's part of Middle Earth, just like Bree, where we are now, is."

"My mistake. I thought you said something different. If you'll excuse me, I need to go check on my food." I pushed my chair back the rest of the way and hurried up to the bar to tell the bartender we had a total nutter by the fireplace and could he call the police to come and take him away.

At the bar were two children, one standing on the other's shoulders to order. I smirked, admiring their guts. They'd never get anything stronger than a Coke, but they'd figure that out soon enough.

"Two Guinness, please," the child (who had the voice of a man) said. The bartender, acting like nothing was out of the ordinary, grabbed two pint glasses and began filling one.

"You need to lay off elevenses," the child (who also sounded like a man) said.

"You're too heavy for me to hold up, Pip."

"You're doing fine, Merry," the boy on top said brightly. "Ah, here we go. Just one more."

I stared straight ahead, not believing what I was hearing. Children that sounded like men that were calling each other 'Pip' and 'Merry'. A guy who called himself 'Strider' by the fireplace talking about Gondor and Bree. "It's the cider," I murmured under my breath. "There's something wrong with it and you're imagining all this."

Something cold and beer-smelling hit my side and ran down my shirt and skirt.

"Sorry!" said one of the men-children. "I can take care of that."

"If you weren't so fat, I wouldn't have stumbled," the bottom man- child said. "I'm putting you down."

"Can you hold these?" the top man-child asked.

I looked over at them and saw he was holding the pints out to me. "What? Oh, yes."

I took the two glasses (the contents of one now drying on my clothes) and watched the top man-child tumble off the others shoulders and stand up.

"Thank you," he said, holding his hands up at me for the glasses.

"No problem." I handed the glasses to him and followed the two of them back to Strider. I was not actually seeing Merry and Pippin and Aragorn in The Eagle and The Child. Tolkien may have eaten here, and he may even have written a bit about these three here, but they were not real. 'Lord of the Rings' was just a story. So then why was I soaked with Guinness and smelling Strider's rank, unwashed B.O? And I'd just held two very real pint glasses, and had the sticky residue off the spilled one on my hands. This had to be a delusion. A very real, detailed one, but a delusion nonetheless. So why not enjoy it while it lasted? I could tell everyone about this later and we could have a good laugh over the spoiled cider and psychoanalyze the delusions for signs of being hopelessly in lust with Viggo, Billy, and Dom.

"What brings you all back to Bree?" I asked, sitting down at my table.

"Male bonding," Pip said brightly. "Life in the Shire is great, but it can get boring so all of us came to Bree for a few days of living like we did during the Quest, and—" Merry's hand fixed itself over Pip's mouth, cutting off whatever else he was going to say.

"I apologize for my cousin. He doesn't always know when to be quiet." That was said with a sharp look at Pip.

I smiled at him. "No problem. I do that sometimes."

"How did you know we were returning here?" Aragorn asked calmly.

I felt my stomach plunge into my feet and my head felt light for a moment. "I remember seeing you all in Bree before, and I've heard tales from my friend about your Quest, the Tolkien I mentioned earlier. He's written them down and he tells me them sometimes." Aragorn's face relaxed, and I mentally gave a deep sigh of relief. "I've admired the Fellowship and what you all did since I first heard about what you all did, and it's great to meet you three. Are any of the others with you?"

"Not right now," Merry said stiffly. "They're taking care of something in the Shire."

"I hope they make her suffer," Pip said, then got a 'Oh, was that out loud?' look on his face.

To Aragorn, I said "Is she one of the girls you mentioned earlier?"

"Yes. I thought you might be one of her friends. I only asked Sarah here what her name was, Merry. Nothing else. Relax."

Something in the back of my mind went 'click'. "I think I know about those girls. Do they say they're elves or perdihel and talk about going with you all to destroy the Ring and they try to seduce Legolas?"

"You know them?" the three males said in unison.

"I know of them and think they're spawn of Sauron."

The corners of Aragorn's mouth turned up slightly. "I agree."

"I feel so bad for Legolas, always being harassed like that," I said with a sigh. "My friend, Tolkien, travels and brings back tales of what's happening outside of Bree, and he sometimes tells me what he's heard about those girls." Bloody smeg but I was adept at lying today. They just rolled off my tongue like a greased pig down a wax-papered slide.

"This one's bothering Frodo, so Sam stayed back so he and Rosie could help our cousin get rid of-what's her name, Merry?"

"Ludmillia." He spit the name out as if it was too nasty to taste any longer. "She says she and Frodo were betrothed at Bilbo's party. She's sixteen! She's only a child. She couldn't have been alive at Bilbo's party!"

I nodded. "Tolkien and I call them 'Mary Sues'. It's a long story why. They're totally out of touch with reality. It's sad, really."

"Did that Peter Jackson you mentioned tell them lies?" Aragorn asked.

Damn. I had mentioned PJ. "Peter Jackson heard the stories wrong, so when he told them to others, there were some details he got wrong. His version is the one those Mary Sues have heard."

Pip set two pints of Guinness on the table and climbed back into his chair. Merry was

rubbing his shoulders and shooting dirty looks at Pip. "Is that why they talk about Haldir being dead?" Merry asked. "None of us have been able to figure out why they think that."

I pulled a face. "Yes. For some reason, Peter Jackson thinks that Haldir and elves from Lorien came to Helm's Deep to help the Rohirrim fight and that he died there."  
"There were no elves at Helm's Deep," Aragorn said, sounded disgruntled. "Other than Legolas."

"I know. It bothers me to hear the story told wrong, but there's nothing I can do. So many believe his version to be the truth and don't bother to hear what Tolkien, who first told us the stories, has to say. Oh, thank you," I said to the server who had just set my food down. My mouth watered with anticipation.

"We haven't eaten for two hours!" Pip said, sounding horrified. "I just remembered we haven't eaten! I need something!"

"You can have my chips," I said, gesturing to the large pile on one side of my plate. "The rest of this will be enough for me."

"Are you sure?" Merry asked, looking dubious as he surveyed my plate.

"You know Men don't need to eat as much as you do," Aragorn said. "We know we won't starve to death if we only eat a few times a day."

Merry and Pip looked at each other as if to say 'They're crazy', looked at my plate, glanced at each other, then turned back to my plate in unison and made the chips disappear with a speed I found vaguely disturbing. How could two beings so small eat that quickly?

"I'm still hungry," Pip said.

Aragorn reached inside his cloak and pulled out a wrinkled ten pound note. "Go and get a snack until we eat in an hour." To me, after the hobbits left, he said, "You don't dress like a Breelander."

I felt myself blanche. "I'm not from here, originally, and I only have the clothes from when I moved here. The same place those girls who annoy you all are from. That's why I look like them."

"You wear more than they do. Sometimes I wonder if they bother to get dressed before they come after us."

I tried not to laugh. "Believe it or not, they are dressed, at least by their standards. These girls have seen famous women dressing like that and attracting lots of men, so they think dressing like that will attract Legolas."

Aragorn looked baffled. "Why would he be attracted to them? To elves, they are still children."

I nodded. "Peter Jackson doesn't tell them about that in his stories, so they think elves mature like Men do and they see sixteen and seventeen as mature and ready for marriage and relationships. They also think elves can have sex before they marry like Men do."

"Elves do not have sex outside of marriage!" Aragorn exclaimed loudly. When the other people in the pub looked at him, he looked sheepish. "Sorry."

"I understand," I said, trying to stop laughing. He sounded like everyone at the PPC, exploding about elves having sex outside of marriage. "It's hard to hear the people you grew up with...talked about that way." I wanted to say 'slandered', but I'd probably have to explain that to him.

Pip and Merry returned, each carrying two pint glasses. I glanced at the table and was surprised to see they'd emptied all the other glasses. Whoever said Hobbits could drink even a dwarf under the table wasn't kidding!

"Is there any way you could get those girls to listen to Tolkien?" Pip asked before draining half the pint glass. "We'd all really appreciate it."

"I wish I could. I have many friends who want the same thing, but the Mary Sues don't want to. They say he's boring." The looks on Aragorn's, Merry's, and Pip's faced spoke volumes about what they thought of Tolkien's tales of their Quest referred to as 'boring'.

Just then, a bell began to clang by the bar. The Hobbits and Aragorn looked over, startled. "It means the bar's closing soon and this is the last chance to order drinks," I explained.

"No more drinks?" Pip said, sounding horrified. "That's new."

"It's—" I suddenly remembered they thought this was the Prancing Pony, not the Eagle and Child, so they wouldn't understand my saying it was Sunday and the pub closed early "—new to me, too. I heard someone talking about it earlier. Makes no sense."

"Be right back." Merry took off after them, returning a moment later to ask Aragorn and I to help them carry glasses back to the table.

"Where are you going from here?" I asked in between bites of my burger.

"We're staying upstairs," Merry said. "Where are you?"

"A fair distance from town. I need to go home soon." Blast on the pub closing early! I could stay here for hours and talk with these guys. At least, imagine I was talking with them.

"It was nice talking with you," Aragorn said. Pip and Merry, mouths busy taking in Guinness as fast as possible, raised a hand to indicate they agreed (or something along those lines. That or they were swearing to tell the truth in court).

"You, too." I shifted slightly, my ale-drenched skirt making a sticky sound as it pulled away from the vinyl seat of the chair.

"Your clothes!" Pip said. "I said I would take care of them for you!"

"Oh, that's okay. It's dry now. I can wash them when I get home."

"No, I insist, upon my honor as Thain. I will make sure they get cleaned."

"I don't have anything I can change in to. Really, it's okay. I appreciate the offer."

"You can have my cloak," Aragorn offered. "Arguing with Pip on matters of honor is like trying to stop an orc from killing."

"I'll stop arguing, then." I smiled wryly. If this were real, I'd dread taking it (Aragorn's or not, carrying around something that rank was going to cause problems), but since this was just a delusion, why not?

"I guess I'll give in now and accept your cape. Thank you."

"Of course," he said, nodding slightly, as he took his cape off and handed it to me.

"I'll go change out of these clothes and be right back." Clutching the cape to my chest, I dashed towards the 'Ladies' sign.

"Okay, I'm ba—" The area by the fireplace was empty, save an old man reading at a table near the one that had a pint glass of fizzy lemonade and one of cider. No tables covered in pint glasses, no plates of food, no smell of tobacco and B.O. on the air. Just the old man and me. "What the smeg?" I murmured. This was too weird. I shook my head, amazed at how fast the delusion had ended, and went back to my table to wait for my food.

Sitting down, I reached to my legs to adjust my skirt and froze. That wasn't my skirt. I looked down and felt my eye widen at the sight of my shirt and skirt in my lap and a rough grey cloak wrapped around me. It even smelled of an unwashed body. "Dude, no way. No. Way." I looked up and stared at the mantle for a long moment, then picked up my glass of cider and took a long swallow. No one at home was going to believe this.

When I got back to my dorm in London that night, I turned my laptop on to log in my travel journal entry for the day. 'July 25. Today was pretty boring. I went to Oxford to visit Tolkien's grave and had dinner at the Eagle and Child, a pub he used to go to. Not a bad place. They say he based The Prancing Pony on it.'


End file.
